Chewbacca is quite a Schnoodle!

I miss my 8 year-old Schnoodle (Schnauzer and Poodle mix), Chewy, very much. He’s had a rather rough half year. My wife and I are in the final stages of our divorce and due to restrictions on my new living arrangements she gets the privilege of caring for Chewy. I get to see Chewy quite regularly, albeit for only a few minutes, when dropping off our children. Chewy is the greatest dog I’ve ever known. He’s great with kids; they can pull on his beard, poke him in the eye or throw die cast cars at him and Chewy simply responds with licks to their hands. Like I said, the greatest dog.

Chewy likes to look under the fence.

In June Chewy started urinating in the house on a daily basis. He never previously was prone to accidents. Chewy was consuming a lot more water. It took several weeks to diagnose but Chewy had developed diabetes. Before he got sick he weighed 30 pounds and in just a few weeks time he had dropped to 20 pounds. Today he’s much thinner, but at least his diabetes is under control. He’s on a special diet and receives two insulin shots per day. To learn more about the disease, check out this Petfinder article about canine diabetes.

Apparently, getting diabetes wasn’t enough of an adventure for Chewy, he needed more. While visiting Chewy this week I noticed his eyes were blood shot and he was bleeding from behind his ear. Just 45 minutes earlier Chewy escaped from the fenced-in back yard and wondered into the mouth of a much larger dog several blocks away. Someone found Chewy and called the number on his collar. We’re unsure what kind of dog got a hold of Chewy and the caller didn’t disclose too much information. The vet fixed Chewy up and said that he was very lucky. While leaving the vet’s office a rather large Labrador walked in. Without hesitation Chewy ran up to that large dog to say hello. I would have shied away. Apparently Chewy isn’t prejudiced. Humans could learn a lot from Chewy.